Chapter 51 — The Ore Arrives
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The second contingent, the one that had remained in Tanzan Town, had finally arrived.
For Gao Yang this was undeniably good news.
At the very least it meant more hands—it meant he could put up the docks and the sawmill, it meant he could consider formally opening the mines in the east, and it meant he could push this camp toward becoming a true "territory."
Even with the second contingent added, the Pioneer Territory could boast only a scant eight hundred-odd souls, but compared to the hundred-man vanguard, this was already a tremendous step forward.
Sir Philip had led the several soldiers and dozen-odd militiamen left behind in Tanzan Town to complete this escort mission. The promising young knight received a warm welcome from Hedy; the arrival of him and his soldiers filled what had been, apart from manpower, the camp's greatest shortfall—its defensive strength.
Though no monsters or the like had been sighted thus far, merely surviving out on a barren wilderness bred a sense of insecurity among the people. The fence walls and magic traps could only ease that unease; only soldiers truly armed and patrolling about could set their minds fully at rest.
As for Sir Philip, what stunned him far more was the scale and refinement of this camp.
They had actually leveled out such a vast area already? The carpenters' workshops were up? They were even building a smithy?!
The young knight walked into the camp nearly in a daze, staring blankly at the sturdy, handsome large tents and the handful of wooden plank houses already completed around him. He also saw the serfs and freemen bustling about the open ground; the latter were busy turning timber that had been roughly dried and smoke-cured into planks, and further working those planks into all manner of tools and building materials. He had never seen labor like this before: laborers who ordinarily needed the whip to work were cooperating in teams, dividing tasks among themselves, coordinated by one of their number into moving like the limbs of a single body. If in normal times putting these people to a single task merely produced a mutual cover-up of idleness, then the present situation was its exact opposite.
And where were the overseers who ought to be standing by with whips in hand?
Philip searched around and only then discovered that the overseers were in fact picked family soldiers who could write a few more characters than the rest, standing at the edge of the clearing—but they merely paced about checking on the completion of work in each area, and what they held in their hands were not whips but wooden boards for keeping records.
"Does it feel rather wondrous?" Hedy's voice startled the young knight out of his stupor. "I never imagined those simple measures could make them so diligent—even the serfs have begun actively learning how to do work they aren't good at."
"Measures?" Sir Philip repeated the word in surprise. "What measures?"
"The Ancestor devised a set of rules for work..."
Before Hedy could finish, Sir Philip's eyes lit up. "Ah, then it must be that the honor and virtue of the ancient knights have reformed these serfs and commoners who are usually so skilled at shirking..."
"No—it's giving them meat," Hedy said, her eyes curving into a smile. "A very simple principle: work more, eat meat."
Even as she said this, she was sighing inwardly: using rewards to spur work efficiency—she had of course tried such a plain, simple method before, but it usually only worked at the very beginning. The serfs would soon find all sorts of ways to both slack off and cheat their way to food, and go on being lazy. Yet once direct competition, precise accounting, strict enforcement, and the so-called "team concept" were folded into the method, everything turned out utterly different. It was truly an incredible thing.
She had also learned for the first time that serfs and commoners were not dull and lazy by nature.
Just then Gao Song's figure appeared not far off.